Lightspeed Venture Partners

Lightspeed Venture Partners is an American venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California. Founded in 2000, it manages approximately $50 billion in assets and invests from seed through growth stages across enterprise, consumer, fintech, and healthcare sectors.¹ Its $485,000 seed investment in Snap returned over 250 times at the company's 2017 IPO.³

Founding and early years

Lightspeed was founded in 2000 by four partners — Barry Eggers, Christopher Schaepe, Ravi Mhatre, and Peter Nieh — who had previously worked together at Weiss, Peck & Greer and attended Stanford University.¹ The firm opened its first international office in Tel Aviv in 2006, focusing on enterprise software and cybersecurity investments led by partner Yoni Cheifetz.¹¹⁷ In 2008, Bejul Somaia joined to build the India practice, opening offices in Mumbai and New Delhi.¹ Lightspeed India has since backed companies including the B2B marketplace Udaan and the quick-commerce company Zepto.¹⁶

For its first decade, the firm focused on enterprise software and infrastructure. It led the Series A in Riverbed Technology in 2002, one of the largest enterprise IPOs of 2006.¹ It led the Series B in MuleSoft in 2007; MuleSoft went public in 2017 and was acquired by Salesforce for $6.5 billion less than a year later.¹ It led the Series A in AppDynamics in 2008; Cisco acquired AppDynamics for $3.7 billion on the eve of its planned 2017 IPO.¹ It also led the Series A in Nutanix in 2010, which went public in September 2016 with its stock rising more than 130% on its first day of trading.¹

The Snap investment

In May 2012, partner Jeremy Liew became the first venture capitalist to invest in Snapchat, putting $485,000 into the company's seed round.²³ Partner Barry Eggers had noticed his teenage daughter spending increasing time on an app he had never heard of, and brought it to Liew's attention.⁴¹¹ Liew tried emailing and messaging Spiegel through LinkedIn and the app's contact address, but got no response.²⁴ He eventually reached Evan Spiegel, then a Stanford undergraduate, through a Facebook message, and the two met at Lightspeed's Sand Hill Road office.²⁴

At Snap's IPO in March 2017, Lightspeed's stake was worth approximately $2.1 billion, making it the fourth-largest shareholder.¹⁴³ The initial $485,000 seed investment returned over 250 times.³ The firm also helped arrange a $15,000 investment from Saint Francis High School in Mountain View, where Eggers' daughter was a student, after the school's investment committee approved the allocation.²

The firm led the Series B in Affirm in 2013 (IPO 2021 at nearly $30 billion market capitalization), the Series B in Nest in 2011 (acquired by Google for $3.2 billion in 2014), and the Series C in Nicira in 2011 (acquired by VMware for $1.26 billion in 2012).¹

The Schaepe departure

In March 2019, co-founding partner Christopher Schaepe was removed from the firm after disclosing that he had hired Rick Singer, the organizer of the college admissions bribery scandal, to help his son with college applications.⁵⁶ Schaepe paid Singer approximately $630,000, though he was not charged in the federal case.¹² Schaepe said he "did not knowingly participate in any bribery scheme."¹² Discussions between Schaepe and his partners about his involvement with Singer had begun weeks before his departure became public.⁵ The Wall Street Journal reported that the incident prompted scrutiny of the firm's internal governance and how partners vet outside advisors.⁶

Growth and expansion

In April 2020, Lightspeed raised $4.2 billion across three funds: an early-stage fund of $890 million, a growth fund of $1.83 billion, and an opportunity fund of $1.5 billion for follow-on investments in its international portfolio.⁷ In 2022, the firm raised $7.1 billion across four flagship funds, including a $1.98 billion early-stage fund, a $2.26 billion Select fund, and a $2.36 billion Opportunity fund.¹ The firm has returned $8 billion to LPs from current and active funds over the past five years.[@newcomer-lightspeed-returns]

In December 2025, Lightspeed closed over $9 billion across six new vehicles, its largest fundraise in 25 years.⁸⁹ The breakdown included $980 million for Fund XV-A, $1.2 billion for Fund XV-B, $1.8 billion for Select VI, and $3.3 billion for the Opportunity fund, plus $1.25 billion in single-investor vehicles.⁹ The firm also closed a separate $500 million India fund.¹³ Total assets under management reached approximately $50 billion.¹

Recent investments

Lightspeed was the seed investor in Mistral AI, leading a €105 million seed round in 2023.¹⁰¹ The round was widely reported as the largest seed investment in a European AI company.¹⁸

The firm is the seed investor in Glean Technologies (enterprise AI search) and ThoughtSpot (analytics), and the Series A investor in Grafana (observability).¹ It led the Series A in Rubrik (data security), where it remains the largest shareholder; Rubrik was founded by Bipul Sinha, a venture partner at Lightspeed.¹ The firm led the Series C of Guardant Health in 2014 (IPO 2018) and seeded Forty Seven in 2015 (acquired by Gilead Sciences for $4.9 billion in 2020).¹

In Israel, Lightspeed has invested in cybersecurity companies including Cato Networks (Series C) and Talon Cyber Security, which was acquired by Palo Alto Networks in 2023.¹¹⁷ As of 2025, the firm has 11 offices globally, including locations in San Francisco, New York, London, Paris, Berlin, and Singapore.¹

References

1. Lightspeed Venture Partners — Wikipedia(accessed Apr 18, 2026)
2. How Lightspeed's Jeremy Liew Became Snapchat's First Investor — Business Insider(accessed Apr 18, 2026)
3. Snap IPO: huge exits for Lightspeed, Benchmark — CNBC(accessed Apr 18, 2026)
4. How Snapchat's First Investor Hunted Down Evan Spiegel — Vanity Fair(accessed Apr 18, 2026)
5. Lightspeed co-founder Chris Schaepe out over college admissions scandal — TechCrunch